


New Beginnings

by pirategirljack



Series: Weekly Fic Project 2017 [8]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, FIx It, Ghost ship visitation, Post-Series, Sami is a sap, how it should have ended, weekly fic project 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 21:03:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10544298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirategirljack/pseuds/pirategirljack
Summary: I actually wrote this the same week I wrote the last one and I have no idea why I didn't post it when I should have, but it's up now!Man, I super-suck at doing things weekly! But this is still part of a weekly fic project, and I'm still trying to get up to 52 random oneshots by the end of the year!





	

They were home.

It had taken seven years, but it might’ve been over twenty. They all had commendations and requests for interviews and had spent weeks recording all information they had, including their own personal stories, to the Science side of Starfleet for future reference and present study.

But Janeway felt lonely, and adrift in a way she never had when she was on an actual ship that some might think of as adrift. She missed her bridge. Not that the new house she’d found wasn’t lovely, not that it wasn’t wonderful to have her own things--what was left of them--returned to her from familys’ houses and pattern-buffer storage, and wherever else they’d all drifted off to while she was away. Not that it wasn’t lovely not having to worry about resources, or breathing open air, or living at actual--not synthetic--gravity. But she found she couldn’t sleep without the right warp frequencies pulsing almost subliminally through the floor, the right chimes and beeps echoing down the corridors. Houses didn’t have warp drives or chimes and beeps.

Houses didn’t go anywhere.

And more than that, she missed her crew. Tom and B’Elanna were on maternity leave with their new baby, everyone else was on vacation or taking new commissions while Starfleet ran over Voyager with a fine toothed comb before deciding whether she’d go out again--and if she did, how many repairs and upgrades she’d need, what crew she'd take, and if she didn’t, how they’d make her into an exhibit at the Ship Museum.

Even Chakotay was off somewhere.

She wondered if he felt the loss of their ship as much as she did.

Janeway told herself she was being maudlin, wallowing in the post-mission, post-survival depression that always seemed to happen even without such a dramatic mission or survival. She told herself she’d felt this way before, after all the missions she’d survived--and she’d survived all of them--and that it would pass. She told herself to find her land legs and move on. She had a promotion to deal with.

She had seven years of news and entertainment and policy to catch up on.

***

It almost worked. 

For a few weeks, she worked on reconnecting with friends and family she’d left behind. Then, for a few months, she settled into her new job. She kept track of her crew in all their new places in a special folder on her computer. She couldn’t keep them safe anymore, but she could watch over them, so she’d asked the computer to gather public announcements on each of them and give her a digest she could read over at the end of the day.

She’d also asked it to give her a chime when any of them were nearby.

It chimed just as she’d settled in to read the latest digest.

“Yes?”

“Commander Chakotay is in-system, on a heading for the local area.”

A flush of *pleased*. A rush of *shy*.

“He’s hailing.”

“Answer.”

“Kathryne. It’s good to see you.”

“You too. I hear you’re going to be in the neighborhood soon.” She didn’t quite ask if he’d come to see her. She didn’t want to be told he wouldn’t.

“Within the hour. It’s you I’m coming to see.”

She couldn’t hide the smile, and he smiled back when it spread across her face. “I hoped you would.”

“It’s been a while. I’ll call you when I’ve docked.”

“I’ll be ready.”

***

Chakotay walking down the ramp from the landing pad, a bag over one shoulder, his hair newly cut and tidy, was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She realized that she’d half decided she never would see it again, and the relief that she was wrong almost made her run to him like the wife left at home when the hero returns from war. Almost.

She did take his arm when he joined her, and pulled herself into his side only a little closer than old friends should.

“It’s good to see you.”

“And you.” For a moment, they stood, side by side, arm in arm, but looking at each other like besotted teenagers, before someone needed to get past them and they had to move.

Dinner at her new favorite restaurant, exclaiming over how wonderful fresh planet-bred earth food was. Then a wander under open skies as the sun went down, with no deadline of when to return to the ship. Then wine on her new porch overlooking the city.

They didn’t talk about much of anything, until he refilled their glasses and said: “I came specifically to talk to you.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest like she was a sixteen year old schoolgirl and not a middle aged and battle hardened ship’s captain. “Oh?”

“Seven and I broke up.”

She hadn’t asked. Hadn’t wanted to. “I’m sorry.”

“I won’t say it didn’t hurt. It did, a lot. But she said something that stuck with me.”

That flutter again. Janeway leaned back on the railing, the lights at her back shining softly on his face where he sat in one of the low chairs she’d spent a day deciding on. Lounging like he lived in it. “What did she say?” she asked when he didn’t continue for a long two heartbeats.

He took a deep breath and leaned forward, lacing his hands together and leaning his elbows on his knees. “She said we were meant to be together.”

“As you were breaking up?”

“No--we.” He gestured between himself and her and, irrationally, she thought she must be delusional, or she must’ve fallen asleep and started dreaming. “We are meant to be together. She said she had always assumed we would be, that everyone on board did. She said we’d made a mistake by not pursuing a relationship. Kathryn, I agree with her.”

“Oh.” Janeway lowered herself, carefully so that she wouldn’t spill her wine, into the chair across from him.

“There’s nothing keeping us apart now.”

“But you’ve only been single a few weeks.”

“It was an amicable parting. We’re still friends, and it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t awful either.”

“But you have a new commission.”

“I haven’t accepted yet. I wanted to see what you were doing first. To see what you would say. Katheryn. I’ve almost given up hope, but I need to ask just once more. Once, we were almost Adam and Eve on a new planet. I can’t promise you a paradise like that again, but I can promise everything I have.”

“Chakotay.”

He held out his hand, and when she didn’t immediately take it, he said, “I once made you a promise that I’d always make things easier on you. So I’ve come with no expectations, no pressure. You don’t have to answer now. You don’t even have to answer tomorrow, or this month. And if your answer is no, I won’t mention it again.” His hand was still out, waiting, but not forcing the issue.

She was having trouble finding her voice, and her silence must’ve gone on too long, because he slowly folded those long elegant fingers and moved to get up; and started to say his goodbyes--and her hand moved before her brain could tell it to, caught his wrist, and wouldn’t let him go. Slowly, he sat back down. He kept his face calm, but even in the low light she could see his dark eyes sparkling. Hopeful.

She was done thinking. She answered by folding herself into his arms the way she had their last night before the call saying Voyager was coming to take them home, before their new world was knocked down and replaced by the old one. He made a surprised noise, but there was no hesitation when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer still.

“Is that a yes?”

“Of course it is, Mr Chakotay. It always has been--we just had to find the right time.”

It wouldn’t be easy. They both knew it. Soon, Starfleet would want them to decide what they were going to do with the rest of their lives and their careers, and they still had different views on politics and treaties, but they’d worked side by side for seven years, and they knew how to keep doing so, no matter what.

And there on her porch, late at night after they’d both almost given up hope, they kissed.


End file.
